De-Enshittifing Windows 11 Version 25H2: Tiny11 Builder ⭐

It’s been a while since I last looked at Tiny11 Builder, the PowerShell-based successor to Tiny11 that helps you install a cleaner version of Windows 11 than the stock version provided by Microsoft.

That sounds good. But Tiny11 Builder, like all Windows 11 “debloater” solutions, can be problematic as well.

In some ways, Tiny11 Builder couldn’t be easier, as it’s just a script that you run to build a custom version of the stock Windows 11 ISO, which is used to make Windows 11 installation media. But in other ways, it’s not particularly flexible in that you can’t easily customize what is installed and what isn’t. Unless, of course, you really know what you’re doing.

In the good news department, you can later (re)install anything that Tiny11 Builder lopped out of the install image, so if there are a few apps it removed, like Clipchamp or OneDrive, that you actually do want in Windows 11, you can get them back. But that’s not true of the more aggressive Tiny11coremaker script variant, which not also carves Windows Defender and Windows Update out of the install image while making it impossible to later reinstall apps and features and keep the system updated. For this reason, I will ignore Tiny11coremaker here and recommend you do so as well.

I last looked at Tiny11 Builder about a year and a half ago, soon after its initial release. Since then, Tiny11 Builder’s author, NTDEV, updated the utility to disable telemetry and with improved Microsoft Edge removal. And Microsoft, of course, shipped Windows 11 version 24H2 and, just recently version 25H2.

I am interested in Tiny11 Builder, as I am tools like Tiny11 Builder, because of their potential ability to lessen the enshittification of Windows 11. I will consider documenting this utility in the 25H2 edition of the Windows 11 Field Guide if I can determine that it’s effective at this task.

Of course, Tiny11 Builder isn’t really designed for that purpose—it’s more about shrinking the install size and resource usage of Windows so that it can run on older, less capable PCs—but if some de-enshittification happens as a byproduct of its central purpose, that’s just fine with me. The questions are how Tiny11 Builder can help and whether this is more or less effective than a utility you run against an existing (normal) Windows 11 installation. You have to clean install Windows 11 using a Tiny11 Builder-created ISO (and, thus, installation media), and that alone may be problematic for many users.

So I gave it another shot, this time with Windows 11 version 25H2.
Use Tiny11 Builder to create a custom Windows 11 ISO
To use Tiny11 Builder, you need the latest Windows 11 ISO, which you can and should download from the Microsoft website, and the Tiny11 Builder ZIP download, which you can find on GitHub (click the green “Code” button and then select “Download ZIP”). If you will be creating installation media with the modified ISO you make with Tiny11 Builder, you will also need an 8 GB or larger...